


ex-righteous man seeks angelus ex machina

by jenghiskhan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (sort of), Abandonment Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Humor, M/M, Walmart, hints of ptsd and panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1387183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenghiskhan/pseuds/jenghiskhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It registers that he’s got a death grip on a stand advertising glittery hair accessories, and when he’s sure his legs are steady enough, he releases it with as much dignity as he can muster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ex-righteous man seeks angelus ex machina

**Author's Note:**

> [imagine a world where kevin is alive, cas is an angel and everyone's happily living in the bunker. it's hard but just imagine]

 

Cas is gone, and Dean thinks absently that he should be used to this by now.

He thinks this, but the visions of burnt-out wings cling like cobwebs to his ribs, tightening. Hell glows, red embers in his grey matter, and the sheer horror of everything rises up in his belly, clawing at his skin until he’s sure it’s about to break loose – he’s going to explode and break and shatter, right in the middle of a fucking _Walmart_ , because he can’t keep a tight enough grip on the tails of a trenchcoat. 

“Sir,” someone says, a lanky kid who looks about twelve but wears a badge claiming him to be staff. “Sir. Are you having a seizure?”

It registers that he’s got a death grip on a stand advertising glittery hair accessories, and when he’s sure his legs are steady enough, he releases it with as much dignity as he can muster. 

The kid is carrying on. “...my God, my manager will kill me and I will _not_ die a virgin, goddamnit  - sir? Sir?” 

It’s an overreaction, it’s stupid, and so Dean straightens up, shakes it all off and gives the kid a shaky grin. “M’peachy.” And because he’s an ass, a terrible human being, he reaches for the box of condoms behind the kid’s head and ostentatiously drops them into his basket.

If the kid reacts, Dean doesn’t stick around to find out. He walks towards the counter, uncaring as to if he’s remembered Sam’s low-fat soy-based yoghurts or deodorant for Kevin. Along with the worry gripping his chest, he dismisses it all as unimportant. They’re all big boys who can take care of dietary preferences, body odour and malevolent biblical forces themselves, respectively.

  

*

 

He’s restless, jittery – electricity thrums under his skin and he taps out his frustrations on the steering wheel of the Impala. The bunker’s two hours away, along open Kansas highways, but the open road doesn’t hold any appeal right now. Sam texts, asking if he can get the next credit cards under the name Lannister, but he’s wound too tight to laugh, and when he tries to text back his fingers shake.

Somehow he manages to keep them steady when he texts Cas. If Charlie were here, he’d be asking her to read it over to assess the clinginess of it, if it’s too brisk – does it shout ‘best friend’ or ‘jilted lover’?

In the end, it’s just: _r u ok_

Casual, he thinks. Chilled. Cool. Hides the riptide of fear in his gut, the need to verify Cas is alive.

 _R u coming back_ sits on the screen until it goes black, and he doesn’t press send.

When the phone buzzes five minutes later with the name of a park a mile away, Dean saves it as a draft. Cas will leave again. He always does.

 

*

 

When Cas disappears, there’s always that rushing sound, a flurry of displaced air which Dean has slowly come to realise is the sound of take-off. Now, he can’t help but imagine the wings unfurling, huge glistening outlines of celestial intent hurling themselves into the sky as Castiel moves the earth around his will.

It’s enormous, cosmic, but it wrenches the air from Dean’s lungs for a far more human reason.

He’s always been empty, hollowed out – Famine knew it, and Dean knows that Death sees it too, the _void_ somewhere Dean can’t physically pinpoint. And yet, when the wind is in the right direction and the moon is blue, and Castiel is smiling like Dean is something precious, there’s the slotting of jigsaw pieces and a sense of being complete.

 

*

 

Carterville is the kind of town where the shops are national chains and the cashier is different every visit; the sheriff’s department contains more than ten people and at least one reality T.V. show has filmed an episode there. It’s a town which provides anonymity; something, after numerous brushes with both showbiz and the FBI, the Winchesters are quite fond of.

Anonymity which isn’t going to last long when their constant companion insists on observing humanity in a kid’s playpark.

“Cas,” Dean says, a parent lecturing a millennia-old toddler, “I’m pretty sure the constitution forbids staring at kindergarten children who aren’t yours. Sub-clause A: _especially_ whilst wearing a trenchcoat.”

The angel doesn’t even spare him a withering glance. “The constitution says no such thing, Dean. I’ve read the original.” 

“Bullshit.”

Cas is smiling, faintly, the corners of his chapped lips pulling up, and Dean can’t tear his eyes away. Everything is _now_ , the cold mossy bench sinking into his thighs and back, the yelling of children in the park, the pinch of his new boots and the scent of freshly mown grass – the smiling angel sat scant centimetres away from him.

“Do you remember,” Cas begins, and Dean laughs, shortly.

“Of course I do.”

They sit silently. Inhuman heat twists through the air between them, and Dean sees them again in his mind’s eye: wings, gleaming power condensed into feather and muscle and bone, poised to whip Castiel away from him at any time. Panic curls small and tight in his stomach.  “You said you had questions,” he says quietly, cast back to a similar park bench four years ago when Lucifer was just a concept and Sam was still fighting his sideburns. “You said you doubted.”

Castiel finally turns to look at him, blue eyes soft, and his lips twist upwards again. He doesn’t say anything, but carefully places his hand next to Dean’s, little fingers brushing (and oh, oh, Dean’s not prepared for the warmth that rushes through him at the touch, but it’s dizzying and new and he just _wants_ ).

“If there’s one thing I’ve never doubted, it was my decision to follow you,” Cas says, a reassurance that Dean didn’t know he was asking for. “I’ve doubted God, my brothers, myself – you on multiple occasions, but I will _always_ follow you, Dean.”

Across whole planes of existence, Dean thinks: of rough stubble against his jaw in purgatory, and then further back, that Grace-to-soul clash in Hell where everything seared white and blinding hot. He thinks of holy fire burning and Superman going darkside and how even now, after everything, Cas is beside him.

A constant, and _goddamnit_ , Dean’s about due one of those in his life.

He moves his hand those final inches, fingers slotting like jigsaw pieces into the empty spaces between Castiel’s. The wind is in the right direction, the moon is blue and Castiel gazes at him like he’s something precious, something to be _saved_.

**Author's Note:**

> written (along with every other published thing i've done) for hannah (ofhuntersandmen.tumblr.com) and her prompt of 'kindergarten'.
> 
> i'm still not 100% sure what happened here.


End file.
